IQALUIT - When Steve Amarualik's Great Pyrenees pup Biggie got sick there was no one he could turn to in Resolute.

So he put Biggie on a plane to Great Slave Animal Hospital in Yellowknife. The return flight and the veterinary care for his pet cost him well over $1,000, he said.

Jerry Anilniliak and his four-month-old Belgian Shepherd puppy Blitz were among the many Iqaluit residents who visited veterinarians Don Floyd and Susan Rouleau when they came to Iqaluit May 23-28. - Derek Neary/NNSL photo

"If you want to get your dog looked at you either send it out or shoot it if it's too bad," Amarualik said, adding that some people simply can't afford the high cost.

He also owns a dog team and said he invariably loses a few each year to distemper and other viruses despite administering yearly vaccines himself.

In Qikiqtarjuaq, Tia Nukiwuak is disheartened over the lack of available animal care and the unfortunate circumstances she and her past pets have encountered.

"We have lost so many dogs due to (having) no veterinarian," she said. "I'm terrified to bring (dogs) here because I feel like I'm setting them up to not survive longer than a year, be it other animals attacking them, be it the different diseases that are out there."

Although advice is available over the phone from veterinary clinics, "you can only do so much and it's really frustrating," Nukiwuak said. "You're on your own, basically."

She said local nurses and renewable resources officers used to give dogs vaccines, but no longer. She would like to learn how to administer those shots, but she said she doesn't know where to get that training.

"I would go and do it at my own expense," she said.

In Kugluktuk, bylaw officer Roger Rand can be relied upon for rabies vaccine and needles "and that's it for any type of pet services" in the community, he said.

As in most Nunavut communities, Kugluktuk residents can fly their animals to Yellowknife for care but Rand said that only happens in a small number of cases each year.

"Normally if an animal is sick or seriously injured here it's just, uh, euthanized," he said, adding that most of the canines in the community are working dogs used to deter bears.